Gales, rain, hailstorms and horror on the Meseta

We left our comfortable hotel after one night of rest to rejoin the Camino at the beginning of the Meseta, a high exposed plateau, with little cover. It all started out well and then the wind started, non-stop all day, with ferocious intensity, coupled with rain and stinging hailstones. We made our way to Hornillos along wide muddy tracks. This area is very remote, flat with some undulating hills and mainly arable farmland. As usual we seemed to be the only people on the track, perhaps as we were overtaken at the start of the day by the few pilgrims on the route. We then quite ridiculously decided to climb up to 1000 metres in midafternoon and descend a steep decline and trek a further four hours, by which time we were well and truly past our sell-by date.

We checked into the first refugio we came to, something that reminded us of "Psycho" and ths was to be very prophetic. We entered a room of 8 bunkbeds and found two sick Italian girls and a strange looking woman, all in black, curled up in the corner. There also was a strange looking man hanging about outside. As we went to sleep this man came into the room and went to sleep fully clothed and he appeared to belong to her although not much was said. Suddenly at 2 in the morning we were awoken by all the lights going on and this woman lighting a cigarette and rearranging her clothes, apparently unaware that she was causing distress to the sleepers. I told her to stop smoking but hung back as an incident would not be a good idea in Spain. She then, every hour, woke up again, muttered things and was smoking in her bed and she then began to rearrange all her clothes again. He, meanwhile, made strange noises all night and we thought he was having a fit. She appeared to me to be having a nervous breakdown. Marion, unknown to me, was mentally practising aikido moves in case of strangleholds! We packed up and left a 5.30, whilst it was pitch dark only to find a padlock on the gate and it appeared we were locked in on a Sunday morning. Furious banging on the shutters had no effect. We were getting very cold at this time at 6.30 until Marion decided to check the gate again only to find it was not locked after all and we made a hasty retreat from an empty "Village of the Damned".

We arrived at Fromista, home of the most beautiful Romanesque church in the world and checked into a pension. We had the most delicious dinner, so far, of Mediterranean vegetables.

Tomorrow we are still on the Meseta, heading towards a 17k streatch with no habitation or supplies.

Two pensioners